Artist, writer, teacher, Jane of all trades, living life to the dregs.

Friday, January 03, 2014

Holiness

1 Peter 1:13-20

Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

Holiness. I spent a long time searching into this concept of holiness a few years ago. I wish I had come to more conclusions instead of opening the Pandora's box of questions. To be holy in all your conduct is one of those commands that feels so far from possible that most of us just want to give up. This passage can feel overwhelming. It gives instruction on being holy: being sober-minded and setting your hope where it belongs. It speaks of God's judgement. But it also points to the solution and the hope. We hope in grace, we hope in one whom we call Father, we hope in the precious blood of Christ. We don't put our hope in fond wishes or fleeting breath or a distant stranger. We hope in the one who gave himself for us, who spins planets, who paints sunsets over wheat fields, who loves with compassion that is even more unfathomable than the commands we are given. If our hope is in the right place then we can conduct ourselves without fear.